Tracking kids and cons

Prototype

There's nothing uncool about RFID transponders or GPS beacons, as long as the people-tracking devices are baked into attractive jewelry.

At least that's the hope of Belfast, Northern Ireland-based KinderGuard, which is designing combined GPS and biometric sensors that can be sewn into school uniforms or worked into cool-looking pendants and wristwatches -- even a heart-shaped locket for a little girl.

RFID tags may also be used in the tracking devices. Parents will be able to monitor their kids' whereabouts via the Internet and receive alerts or phone calls when they go astray, said KinderGuard chief executive Ray Douglas.

KinderGuard has also designed a bracelet for prisoners that resembles the exploding neck collar worn by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the sci-fi flick ''The Running Man."

''We have gotten a lot of interest from government organizations who see applications for prisoner tracking," said Douglas.

The devices also contain biometric readers so sophisticated they can tell whether a tag has been taken off of an individual, because it will detect changes in multiple readings -- body temperature, perspiration -- who knows what? KinderGuard won't tell us.

Pacemakers for other parts

Pacemakers like those that fix bum tickers are increasingly being used to zap brains and bladders to restore proper rhythm to malfunctioning organs and the nervous system.

Medtronic's ''brain pacemaker" devices might help control symptoms of neurological disorders, say doctors who have used the device in clinical trials. The pacemakers are implanted in the chest, and wired into specific parts of the brain. Parkinson's patients with implanted pacemakers see significant reductions in tremors and other symptoms, according to Medtronic. Up next: trials for the treatment of severe epilepsy.

Doctors have also been implanting the pacemakers, also called neurostimulators, into the tushes of patients with poor bladder control. The device stimulates nerves near the tailbone to better control bladder function.

But be careful charging around. Medtronic says that patients with incontinence pacemakers could experience an unexpected ''jolting or shocking sensation" if they make any sudden movements.

Moreover, patients might have to carry an ID card that explains to security guards why they've tripped the metal detector.

Open cell source

Feeling left behind by the ''open source" revolution? Mystified by all of that Linux chatter led by some dude named Commander Taco?

Don't fret: You may soon join the ranks of open-source users simply by picking up a new mobile phone.

Mobile phone maker LG Electronics is showing off a prototype (left) that runs on the SavaJe OS, an open-source Java platform. The LG phone running SavaJe (pronounced ''savage") has a 176 x 220 display and can store a gig of applications and media files. LG may release a phone running on SavaJe as early as next year.

Open-source smart phones, if they catch on, won't look much different at first. But SavaJe (the company behind the OS) and other software developers say such phones will be easier to customize. And cellphone providers are anxious to have your phone carry their brand names, rather than that of the manufacturer: as a Verizon phone, for example, rather than as an LG phone.

As hackers step up their attacks on smart phones, open-source code may also prove more secure than proprietary software. Open-source code is built, tested, and supported by a developer community, not just one company. Many believe these factors have made Linux, for instance, a very reliable and secure operating system.

Phones running purely on Java may also attract legions of open-source developers. It should also be easier to move open source apps developed for PCs onto open-source phones.